To some Pentagon planners, the gift seemed magnanimous in the extreme. "You've got a mandate," said an Assistant Secretary of Defense to a group of Air Force generals. "He's given you space." The men in uniform were inclined to argue that Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's decision to let them build a Manned Orbiting Laboratory was hardly as generous as all that. Space, they figure, has belonged to them all along. They have always maintained that it is merely an extension of the atmosphere a little higher and thinner, to be sure, but a proper place for Air...
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